The Secret Language of Fish, Volume 4

Death of the Gilded Warrior

Back before the Internet and personal computers—hell, before my parents even acquiesced to putting a television in our home (black-and-white, UHF, ostensibly 13 channels but at least eight were unused), my primary source of infotainment was the Colliers and Americana Encyclopedias my father had bought with the U.S. savings bonds that were supposed to have been my college money. I particularly enjoyed the Colliers volumes that contained extensive sets of color plates. Volumes A (amphibians), B (birds), M (mammals), and R (reptiles), for example, were like comic books for a junior trivia geek like me. The real treasure trove, however, was the F volume: flags, flowers, and fish.

It was in the Colliers F that I first saw what the encyclopedia then called a dolphin (I later learned that ichthyologists call them dolphinfish to avoid confusion with Flipper and company). What a bizarre character. The blunted-tomahawk face of the dolphinfish looks completely at odds with the fish's acute sternward body taper, its Mohawk dorsal fin, and its scissor tail. The effect is something like putting a Rolls Royce grill on a Lotus Europa. As if the shape alone weren't enough to make them look like something out of a Ken Kesey/Hunter S. Thompson collaboration, dolphinfish sport glam rock scales of electric blues and neon greens awash with what looks like gold dust.

A few years after my first discovery of the dolphinfish, furor over the trapping of dolphins, porpoises, and small whales prompted a demand in the U.S. and Europe for dophin-free tuna. Restaurateurs and fishmongers deemed it prudent to avoid the terms dolphin and dolphinfish in reference to anything they were hoping to sell for human consumption. The Hawaiian and Latin American names mahimahi and dorado were quickly taken up.

Mahimahi, I'm sorry to report, is the name that stuck. Mahimahi translates as "strong strong," a verbal construction that sounds a bit goofy to anyone accustomed to a language with either a bit of variety or even a few decent intensifiers. The English equivalent would be something like very strong or powerful or potent or kick-ass. Understanding the source of the word has not helped me learn to like it, nor has it made buying the fish any easier. I still feel like a dork asking my fishmonger for a mahimahi filet. It sounds like I'm stuttering.

The term dorado literally means "golden one," a name that was given to the legendary South American warriors who supposedly dusted themselves with gold dust after bathing. I like this name. It's fanciful, and it describes a striking aspect of the fish. It doesn't sound silly.

Sadly, the term dorado is being swallowed up by the encroaching mahimahi. Even the restaurants in Cozumel sell it as mahimahi. I'm not sure why mahimahi managed to outpace dorado, but I think it has something to do with a popular recipe. Search for mahimahi recipes online and you'll find quite a few versions of Macadamia-crusted mahimahi in coconut milk. Frankly, this is an unimpressive combination. I love fish poached in coconut milk, and I like Macadamia nuts, but the combination is bland. If you want to coat fish with nutmeats, hazelnuts or almonds provide a good deal more flavor and character, but I wouldn't use even those coatings in coconut milk. The result would be, as Princess V is fond of saying, much of a muchness. I think the Macadamia-coconut treatment is popular simply because of its exotic-sounding combination of Hawaiian ingredients.

The Non-White White

I know that I said at the outset of the Secret Language of Fish that I was going to talk about white-fleshed fish, and I know that a lot of cookbooks claim that mahimahi is a white-fleshed fish. In truth, mahimahi is not a white-fleshed fish—not exactly. The raw flesh is generally pink with dark red along the lateral line. This fish is a powerful pelagic, after all. These guys spend their lives on the go, and they depend upon their speed for survival—think of the dolphinfish as something like a billfish after an overzealous rhinoplasty. Like all his fully shnozzed billfish cousins, the flesh of the dolphinfish has a dense, meaty texture. Mahimahi cooks up slightly firmer than tuna but not quite as firm as swordfish.

The majority of mahimahi flesh does cook white. Whitish. Perhaps we should call it off-white. The red strips turn dark brown but taste pretty much the same as the white portions. Many diners find the dark strip unappetizing, and since the stripe in forward portions of the filet contains sharp little bones, I usually trim off this lateral line strip.

Like tuna, mahimahi stands up well to grilling, broiling, and searing. Many diners seem to be put off by the pink-within-white look of seared mahimahi. I suppose it looks a bit like undercooked chicken. This is unfortunate; rare mahimahi is delicious and has a firm texture.

Grilled mahimahi, like grilled tuna or swordfish, can be served like a steak with little or no sauce. One of my favorite treatments is grilled mahimahi with mango salsa served over chimichurri rice. I'm sure you'll find this treatment colorful, complex in flavor, and obscenely simple to prepare. The following recipe feeds three.

Half-grilled mahimahi with mango salsa

dramatis personae

one mango, diced
juice of one small lime
one half of a small sweet onion, diced
one red serrano chilli, seeded and minced
a few drops of sesame oil
a pinch of sea salt
a tablespoon of chopped cilantro leaves

one pound mahimahi filet
one teaspoon peanut oil
one half cup basmati rice

two tablespoons chimichurri or tomatillo salsa

quality of ingredients

Mahimahi filets should be pink with red stripes. If they're tan with brown stripes, they've been out too long. Also, the flesh should smell sweet, with no hint of ammonia. Mahimahi skin is a flat, steely grey. Sadly, the fish lose their brilliant colors within minutes of dying.

The mango should be yielding but not mushy or bruised.

If you can't find red serrano chillis, substitute red jalapeños, red fresnos, or red fingerhots.

Chimichurri is available at some grocery stores; tomatillo salsa is even more readily available. I use the prepared stuff because I only want two tablespoons for the rice. If you want to make your own chimichurri, it's not too complicated: fresh parsley, oregano, garlic, jalapeño, salt, peanut oil, and a little lemon juice.

preparation notes

Make the salsa first. Combine the ingredients (mango, lime juice, onion, serrano, sesame oil,
salt, and cilantro) and put the salsa in the refrigerator while you prepare everything else. After half an hour, much of the mango will have softened or dissolved in the lime juice.

Prepare the rice as you normally would. Once the rice is done but before it cools, stir in the chimichurri (or green salsa).

Remove the red flesh and any bones from the mahimahi, but leave the skin on.

You can grill, barbecue, or sauté the filet. I prefer cooking the mahimahi in two steps. First, in a non-stick sauté pan with a teaspoon of peanut oil, cook the filets skin-side down over a medium-high flame, just enough to cook them halfway through (about three to five minutes, depending on the thickness of the filet). Then finish the other side of the filets on a grill or grill pan.

Serve the filets skin-side down on a bed of chimichurri rice with a generous topping of mango salsa.

Piña Colada Mahimahi

This is my own kitschy, faux-Hawaiian answer to the Macadamia/coconut dish.

Most white-fleshed fish goes well with coconut milk, but it takes the sturdiness of mahimahi, swordfish, or albacore to stand up to pineapple enzymes. Despite the name, this mahimahi dish contains no rum. White wine, yes, but no rum. The miso serves to thicken the sauce and also harmonizes well with pineapple.

I've tried this recipe only once. The flavors meshed nicely, but I created waaaaaaaay too much sauce. In other words, I'm just guessing on these quantities.

dramatis personae

one cup of diced pineapple
one half can (7 ounces) unsweetened coconut milk
two tablespoons white miso
one minced red fingerhot chilli
three keffir lime leaves
two tablespoons peanut oil
one pound mahimahi
one quarter cup pinot grigio

quality of ingredients

I used fresh pineapple. The canned stuff always tastes too sweet to me. Because this recipe requires only a cup of pineapple, you'll have fresh pineapple around for other uses for the next few days.

Fresh coconut milk would be great, but (1) it's a pain in the tuchus and (2) the canned stuff is just fine. Be sure you're using unsweetened coconut milk and not sweetened coconut cream.

If you can't get keffir lime leaves, I don't know what to tell you. Keffir lime zest is almost as good, but if you can get the limes, you can usually get the leaves. A little lime juice will give the sauce a bit of zing, but it can't compete with the complex aromatic tartness of keffir lime leaves.

If you can't find red fingerhot chillis, substitute red jalapeños, or red fresnos. If you want something with a serious burn, use a cayenne chilli instead of a fingerhot.

preparation notes

This dish is prepared in three parts: sauce, topping, and filets.

For the sauce combine the coconut milk, the miso, and half of the pineapple chunks in a blender. Blend this concoction to a smooth, creamy consistency.

For the topping: (1) Mince the keffir lime leaves very fine. (2) In half of the peanut oil, sauté the remaining pineapple and the chilli. The pineapple chunks will get a wee bit darker and slightly more translucent, and the chilli will brighten. (3) Stir in the keffir lime and remove the topping from the heat.

For the filets:
Heat a teaspoon of peanut oil in a non-stick skillet over a high flame until the oil begins to shimmer. Spread the oil over the bottom of the pan (it doesn't have to cover completely), and place the mahimahi filets in the pan, skin side up. Leave them alone for two full minutes. Turn the filets over. The cooked side should be golden brown. Taking care not to pour any wine onto the filets, pour the white wine into the pan (the steam from the wine will help finish the filets more evenly). Cover and allow the filets to cook for another three minutes on medium-high heat.

Serve the filets individually plated on rice, skin side down. Top each filet with a portion of the topping and pour on enough sauce to cover the filets.

Hot orange mahimahi teriyaki

I was tempted to call this an American teriyaki, just to avoid nettling the purists. You see, authentic teriyaki—Japanese teriyaki—is made with four ingredients: sake, mirin, sugar, and soy sauce. American and European teriyaki's are typically made with garlic, which is rare in Japanese dishes, and ginger, which is more common in Chinese and Korean cooking. In fact, some argue that most American teriyaki sauces are closer to bulgogi sauce (Korean barbecue).

But why quibble? The name teriyaki translates as "shiny grilled thing," which provides no guidance as to ingredients. I and my audience expect teriyaki to have sweet, sour, soy-salty, garlicky, and gingery notes. With that in mind, I try to find the right balance of ingredients for whatever dish I'm preparing. In my years of experimentation, I've concocted teriyakis for steak, spare ribs, chicken, duck, eel, mackerel, bluefish, shrimp, salmon, scallops, and mahimahi. I don't know how many of those I can say I've perfected (okay, the scallops were ghastly and the bluefish was so-so) but this mahimahi recipe is easily my most successful to date.

dramatis personae

(these proportions will feed three)

1 lb mahimahi
1/2 cup tamari
1/3 cup sake
1/3 cup cider vinegar
zest and juice (1/3 cup) of 1 medium navel orange
1 tbl grated ginger
1 tbl minced garlic
2 tbls honey
1 Thai chilli, seeded and finely diced
peanut oil

quality of ingredients

I don't usually talk about the process of creating something like this, so I guess I'm overdue. Part of what makes dishes like fun for me is the chance to experiment, tweaking a flavor here, a flavor there, while maintaining the overall balance of elements.

For teriyaki sauces, I generally try to match what I expect of the flavor of the base ingredient against the following balance of sauce component types:

• soy
• rice wine or some other light wine
• something sweet
• something tart
• some ginger
• some garlic
• some additional spice for character

Garlic and ginger are relatively stable elements, but most of these items offers a surprisingly wide range of possibilities.

Over the years, I've gone through a number of different soy sauces. I now use just two: Chinese dark soy and Japanese tamari. Tamari, a soy sauce made from pure soya, tends to be much lighter and more subtle than the Chinese dark soys. The Chinese dark soy is made with wheat and soya and thickened with sugar, making it viscous, rich, and toasty. I prefer tamari with fish (except salmon and fishy-tasting fish like mackerel) and shrimp. For most applications I find that I will use three times as much tamari as I would dark soy sauce.

I don't fully understand the traditional use of sake, mirin, and sugar. Mirin is sweet rice wine. Adding sugar makes it sweeter. Adding sake makes it drier. Using all three just seems silly to me. Because it's difficult to find good mirin for a reasonable price (and without going to a specialty wine shop) and because the "cooking" mirin sold in US grocery stores is corn-syrup-fortified crap, I typically forego this. I tend to substitute michiu (Chinese rice wine) for the sake because the results are about the same, and michiu is far cheaper. If you can't find sake or michiu, any cheap, dry white wine will do.

For the something sweet, the traditional Japanese solution is a combination of mirin and sugar. Many American and European recipes substitute sherry for the mirin, but I don't recommend it. I can always tell when a recipe uses sherry. I find the distinctive sherry aftertaste out of place in teriyaki—reminds me of moules à la marinière. Don't get me wrong. I like moules à la marinière, but I don't want my teriyaki to taste like them. But, hey, whatever floats your boat. If you like sherry in your teriyaki, use it. Of course, as I said already, I prefer not using mirin or sherry. I prefer teriyaki sweetened with honey, brown sugar, or fruit juice. I am particularly partial to orange or tangerine juice with fish teriyaki. Brown sugar adds a molasses-y depth to your sauce, and honey adds a similar rich something extra.

For the something tart, I typically use apple cider vinegar. Be sure to check that the label doesn't say "apple cider flavored," which means you've been sold some artificially flavored white vinegar. Nasty stuff. Feel free to experiment with other vinegars (sweetened rice wine vinegar is not bad). Be aware, though, that balsamic and sherry vinegars will add a strong fruity note that you might not want in your teriyaki. Chinese black vinegar is good in sparerib teriyaki.

In this mahimahi teriyaki, I've added orange zest (to augment the citrus flavor imparted by the juice) and a Thai chilli to add a little zing. A few items I've tried that worked well with some treatments include star anise, white pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, and coriander seed. Your mileage may vary.

preparation notes

As with most teriyaki, the first step is to mix the sauce. Combine the tamari, sake, cider vinegar, orange juice, garlic, ginger, honey, and minced chilli in a glass or ceramic bowl large enough to hold the sauce plus the filets. Do not add the zest at this point.

Remove the skin and red flesh (which may have turned brown by the time you get it home) from the filets. Assuming you have started with a single one-pound portion of filet, you should now have two skinless slices of fish, one about twice the size of the other. Divide each of these into thirds. Immerse the six pieces of mahimahi in the sauce and allow them to marinate for at least fifteen but not more than thirty minutes. If this marinates too long you'll have teriyaki ceviche. I use this time to rinse my rice and prep whatever vegetables I am serving as a side dish.

Remove the mahimahi from the sauce and set the pieces aside on a plate to dry.

Pour the sauce into a small sauce pan and, over a low flame, reduce it by half. This should take about twenty minutes (making this an ideal time to cook the rice).

When the sauce is nearly reduced (after about fifteen minutes), preheat the peanut oil in your grill pan over a medium-high flame. When the oil begins to shimmer, spread it over the grill with a pastry brush or paper towel.

Once the sauce is reduced, pour it through a strainer or sieve to remove the solids. Return the sauce to the sauce pan over the lowest flame your stove will maintain. Stir in the orange zest.

Grill the mahimahi pieces on one side for two minutes. Turn the pieces over and grill them for an additional two minutes.

Remove the mahimahi from the grill and pour a teaspoon of the teriyaki sauce over each piece of fish.

I serve teriyaki with accompanying bowls of white rice and smaller bowls of the warm teriyaki sauce. The fish might not need any more sauce, but the girls and I like to add a bit of the sauce to our rice.